10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

A man smokes as he waits
with his painted buffalo before a buffalo bodypainting
competition in Jiangcheng county, Yunnan province, May 18,
2014.REUTERS/Wong
Campion

Good morning! Here's what you need to know.

Pfizer Rejected. British drug giant AstraZeneca
has rejected what Pfizer says will be its final over to acquire
the company at a $117 billion valuation,
the FT reports. "A top
10 shareholder said they were 'sick as a parrot' at the UK
pharmaceutical company’s decision," the paper said.
"AstraZeneca’s shares were down 12.8 per cent at £42.05 by mid
morning in London."

AT&T Buying DirecTV. The telecom
behemoth announced it'll purchase the satellite TV provider for
an all-in total of $67 billion. It will now face regulatory
scrutiny. Here's
how, BI's Steve Kovach says, they intend to beat it:
"AT&T will frame the DirecTV purchase as a way to
provide blanket internet access to portions of the country that
don't have reliable broadband yet. Meanwhile, AT&T will have
to prove to the government that its proposed merger won't give it
an unfair advantage over other TV and internet providers.
However, AT&T could spin its own proposal as a counterweight
to the Comcast deal."

Deutsche Bank Fundraising. The
Frankfurt-based megabank
announced it raised $11 billion in new capital, including
$2.4 billion from the Qatari royal family. The firm has recently
faced calls to ramp up its capital ratios.

China Home Price Growth Slows. Year-over-year new home prices
slowed to an 11-month low in April, China said Sunday.
Existing home prices fell from March in 22 of 70 cities in April,
compared with just 14 in March. Data last week showed property sales
dropped 6.9% in the January-April period from a year earlier in
terms of floor space, and fell 7.8% in terms of value.

Europe Stocks Tank. Italian stocks
fell 2.39%, and London's FTSE and Germany's Deutsche Boerse were
down 0.4%. "The weakness in the market today is likely a
hangover from last week's disappointing euro-area growth figures,
but also reflects uncertainty ahead of the European elections,"
the Wall Street Journal quoted ING's Aengus
McMahon as saying. "There is certainly more
nervousness in the market, but I think that will dissipate as
soon as the elections are over."

ECB Easing In The Offing. 90% of economists
polled by Bloomberg believe Mario Draghi will ease monetary
policy in June. "Draghi clearly pre-committed,” Elwin de Groot,
an economist at Rabobank in Utrecht, the
Netherlands, told
Bloomberg. “As any other central banker should know, he would
risk his reputation, and a significant strengthening of the euro,
if the ECB doesn’t follow through in June.”

Subprime Across The
Pond.There's been a
new surge in non-conforming loan sale packages in the U.K.'s
white-hot property market, the
FT reports.A senior
London-based securitization banker told the
paper: "Banks have had these loans on their balance
sheets for a while and are seeking to take advantage while the
market is more receptive to racier credits. Also, with
regulators' stress tests coming up, these are the kind of assets
you want to get rid of because they hurt you."

Credit Suisse Penalties. Bloomberg
reports the Geneva-based firm will pay $2.5 billion to U.S.
regulators over charges it helped Americans evade taxes, and that
CEO Brady Dougan could step down.